It seems to help on the admin work to post these "laws of the land" once in a while. It's almost always the same issues, so just consider this a reminder. MY apologies that this will probably sound harsh ... for the most parts/with extremely few exceptions, this forum is still running GREAT and it's one of the best forums on the internet!!

Seriously!!! The forum is 95% of the reason that earlyretirementextreme.com still exists, so let's keep the standards high!

1) DEAR POTENTIAL SPAMMERS! There are tons of eyes on you on this forum. DON'T WASTE OUR TIME! Typically spam will be deleted within the hour. Sometimes we catch you within 5 minutes! If you think you can sneak in five links for SEO purposes by hiring some copywriter to post human-sounding messages, you just wasted whatever you paid them or 10 minutes of your life. They will be deleted. Your IP and email will be banned for the duration of the universe!

2) DON'T USE THE QUOTE FUNCTION AS A REPLY BUTTON! Some people use phones or textreaders to keep up, so please don't abuse the quote function. Don't quote the entire post you're responding to. Because if you do, people have to scroll through all that only to learn that you're just responding to the post above IF you're responding to the entire post (which is the case in most cases), just start your post with @theirusername. Then respond. Only use the quote function when/if responding to specific paragraphs or sentences and edit everything else out.

3) DO NOT SIGN YOUR NAME [or URL] AND AVOID HEADERS/FOOTERS on your posts. Again ... it's annoying to have to scroll through that. I will edit this out manually and I don't like to do that. People already know who you are from your username and/or profile details. You don't have to say "hello" or "thanks" or "best wishes" at the beginning or end of every single post you make. It's a forum post. Not a a handwritten letter.

4) DO NOT CROSS POST to multiple forums. Seems like a great idea right ... until people figure out what you're doing and start ignoring you because they figure that maybe the thread is active on another forum. Tragedy of the commons and the Boy who cried wolf combined.

5) DO NOT INSTIGATE! Deliberately trying to piss people off is juvenile, so just don't. If someone is trolling or acting like a 12-year old sociopath, please try to ignore it the first time around rather than escalating it. If they do it repeatedly, you have my permission to fire back ONCE! If they keep doing it, PM me and I'll ban them for life. I will sacrifice the one to protect the many. A lot of effort is focused on keeping this forum in the style of a rational debate amongst adults.---Which kinda makes it an oasis of reason on the interwebs. Don't destroy this culture! It's a rare thing in these days!

6) NO LYNCH MOBS! Because I've been on the receiving end of this more than once I'll allow no social media mob behavior on this forum; that is, negatively discussing anyone who is not present to defend themselves. In my experience such things don't help anyone. Basically, if you don't want to say something to somebody's face (presuming they're a heavyweight UFC fighter/not smaller than you), don't say it at all. Furthermore, if you don't want to say it for the public record without the benefit of anonymity.---Don't say it either. This is not for the purpose of being politically correct. It is because such opinionating tends to be misinformed and stupid.

8) NO MEMES, NO MISINFORMATION, NO SHITPOSTING! This forum mainly exists as a high quality source of information and discussion. While some think that memes are artistic or that misinformation is just an opinion or that shitposting is "fun lulz", one would be hard-pressed to make the argument that any of these contribute quality insights or that posting them adds to any discussion in an intelligent manner.

9) NO URL-SHORTENERS AND NO AFFILIATE TAGGING! The reason why user-based affiliate tagging is strongly discouraged is to prevent bad-faith posting and spamming (see rule 1). The problem with URL shortening (using goo.gl, bit.ly, tinyurl.com, etc.) is 1) that many users will not click when they can't see exactly what they're clicking on due to the potential for sketchy redirects; 2) if the account or service associated with the shortener dies then those shortened URLs become void consequently borking forum/hyperlink integrity; 3) Old URLs tend to rot over time and not being able to see the original makes it harder to recover it from various "wayback" archives. Similar to Rule 3 I will try to clean things up by editing out problems manually and I don't like to do that.

The applies to reading posts as well as writing posts. This is yet another way of phrasing the kind of personal behavior that preserves and creates a high standard of online behavior which is becoming ever harder to find. This rule is more of a guideline but notice how it confirms and reinforces many of the previous rules. Practically this suggests striving to avoid using rhetorical tricks to trap whomever one disagrees with. Aim to inform (a win-win outcome) rather than debate (typically a win-lose).